ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a case study of the use of the choice modelling method in irrigation water supply policy and management in Portugal. Provision of local public goods requires a full understanding of local people’s preferences over supply policy design, and their willingness to switch from the status quo to the new public goods or institutions. This understanding not only helps policy design but also spurs local cooperation and directly determines economic performance. Irrigation infrastructure, as well as water resource, is an important common property shared within the same catchment. Farmers’ participation, as well as their preferences, is therefore critical to the policy designer in order to realize social welfare maximisation. A recent irrigation development project involving of the Alqueva Dam on the Guadiana River (Portugal) is planning to extend the public irrigation system to farming land in Serpa-Mértola region where most areas are currently mainly rainfed, with only a few areas irrigated by groundwater or pump water from excavated reservoirs or rivers. Understanding local farmers’ preferences on new irrigation system and water supply policy, as well as the acceptability of the new policy, is the main purpose of this study.
